Reading is fundamental in today’s society; to lack the ability to read is to lack the opportunity to fully engage with the world around us. Cultivating an interest in reading — or, at the very least, the ability and basic understanding to read — is one of the primary goals of the education system. In Alberta, English Language Arts at the grade 12 level is a mandatory prerequisite to graduate.
Reading was introduced into my life before I was old enough to create lasting memories, as is the case for many. Bedtime stories are told, signs are read to us, and the curiosity of “what does that say” propels our inherent desire to learn to read for ourselves.
Learning to read and developing an interest in literature are, while different, not mutually exclusive. Understanding what we read and being able to apply it to our lives can help make us lifelong readers and active participants in the world around us.
My research started off with the single question: how do children develop an interest in reading? My participants inspired my project; I’ve been working as a Professional Babysitter for the past year and a half, spending 3 or 4 evenings a week with two wonderful children. When I started with them in December 2014, Olivia was 2 and Johnny had just turned 5. (Names have been changed.) Neither child could read, but being read to was one of the key components of their bedtime routine. After each child chose a book, we would snuggle in Johnny’s bed and I would read them the stories. Some weeks, they would pick the same books every night, and then they would completely forget about them for months. Some nights, they would both pick the same book, and ask me to read it twice. There were, and still are, days when Olivia will retreat to a corner and tell me that she doesn’t need a bedtime story and is instead reading to herself.
When she reads to herself, Olivia loves to read books about decluttering your life, except she interprets the words on the page very differently. She will tell me the most vibrant stories, and if I didn’t know any better, I would think she was truly reading the exact words from a book. Unable to make sense of most words just yet, she is a great example of how reading is connected to how we make meaning in our lives. Having stories read to her is a big part of how Olivia has come to understand the world around her, and “reading” is a way in which she can process and share the thoughts in her own head. Reading is still purely a creative process for her; the academic aspect has not yet been deeply introduced.
This past September, Johnny started grade one and began nightly home reading. He started out with basic books that I was sure he was reading from memory, and then almost overnight he was reading full children’s stories, and then all of a sudden chapter books. The evolution of his reading felt incredibly fast to me, but when I step back and look at his parents and home environment, it makes sense that he picked up not only the ability to read words, but to understand stories, quite quickly.
A lot of what both children read is influenced by their parents. Robert and Laura are professional musicians and have a deep passion for the arts and humanities. I came to their house once evening to find Robert reading Johnny a page from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream. In my second year of university, I took a full year Shakespeare course thinking it would be helpful, as I might one day be asked to teach Shakespeare; I walked away from the course still heavily reliant on No Fear Shakespeare to understand the plays. Johnny seemed quite interested though, and Robert went through very slowly, helping to explain each line.
After they finished the page, I asked if there was a specific reason why they were delving into such a heavy piece of literature, and Robert said that he had found his old compilation of Shakespeare plays and wanted to share them with Johnny. I asked Robert if he read this to Johnny with the intention of creating an idea that Shakespeare is good or impressive literature, in contrast to, for example, Dr Suess or Roald Dahl, which might be construed as simple and less impressive. “Not at all,” Robert told me. “I certainly don’t read Shakespeare for fun, and I wouldn’t expect the kids to grow up doing that.” He explained to me that earlier in the evening they were doing Johnny’s home reading, and Johnny got very upset and frustrated over a sentence that he did not understand. Johnny is self-critical, and he felt that his inability to understand part of the story reflected on his overall intelligence and ability to read well. By reading Shakespeare to him, and having to stop to read the footnotes, Robert wanted to show Johnny that it’s okay to not understand something; even as an adult there are pieces of literature that will make no sense to us unless we are provided with or seek out context and background knowledge. Reading can sometimes be a lot of work, no matter how old you are.
Another example of reading practices within this family pertains to language, as Laura reads the kids Dutch bedtime stories. Laura grew up in Holland and moved to Canada when she met Robert ten years ago. She speaks English to the children with a few Dutch words thrown in. At night, she reads stories to the kids in Dutch and they love it, but I’ve observed that as Johnny has built his own reading skills, he has begun to lose interest in being read to in Dutch. Johnny has learnt to find specific meaning in words, the lack of meaning in foreign words takes away from the enjoyment of the story. But for Olivia, the pictures are still more interesting than the story itself.
Although Olivia is almost four years old now, she still occasionally picks baby books; she likes the pictures and she likes being able to touch the books. I watched this pattern over the course of a week, and I began to question how the kids were choosing the books. Olivia picks books based on the pictures, tactility, and her previous amusement from the book. Johnny picks books based on the content of the story and how much it interests him. Lately, he has been picking books relating to superheroes and bad guys, with a special interest in what makes a villain bad. For him, the story has become much more important than the appearance of the book. I asked Johnny about the library at school and how he decides what books to choose. “I read the title,” he told me. “If it sounds cool, I pick it off the shelf, read the first page, and then decide if I want to take it.” The process sounds well scripted to me, definitely something academic that had been taught to him. Nonetheless, the difference between how Olivia chooses her books and how Johnny does illustrated the development we go through as readers and how we begin to develop an interest in certain types of books.
As their reading has developed and their skills and processing abilities have improved, the necessity of bedtime stories has not weaned, and I don’t expect it to for a long time. I have fond memories of my dad reading us Harry Potter all through elementary school, and I have no doubt that reading has shaped me into the person I am today. Returning to the basics and getting to read some of my favourite stories to Johnny and Olivia has helped me see the relevance of reading for all ages. On the one hand, the moral purpose behind most stories is clear; on the other hand, there is such a fantastical element to being able to interact with the world in an endless number of ways. So, how do children develop an interest in reading? From what I’ve seen, the natural spark of curiosity is there already, and it grows as the adults in their lives add kindling to the fire. If the circumstances are right, then by school age, the fire is strong enough to burn on its own, with the occasional need of a parent or teacher to add in a log for fuel.
